Posts tagged ‘film’

Sadly, while I could grab screenshots, the clip isn’t embed-able, but go. Watch it. I’ll wait.

In 1948 ‘special effects’ largely consisted of expert training, handling, driving and editing skills. And even though I’m sure I could see the handler’s knee guiding the wheel in one scene, I still think that this is a lot more impressive than the computer animated version we’d typically see today.

The dog in the video appears to be much darker in color than any of the modern Vizslas I’ve seen. Susu looks like a dog whose seen a bit of field work. And his attitude toward work very much reminds me of the OddMan.

“My Dog Zero,” released in 1992, was Joe Murray’s third independent film and his first color film. About the film he writes:

In 1991, I did an 11 minute indie film about a man’s quest to overcome high expectations when it came to finding a perfect canine companion. It was done on a shoestring budget, with students painting cels in exchange for food and coffee and a donated Iron camera stands that needed to be moved with a fork lift.

Here is a clip where Mildo decides a Dog is what he needs, and travels to the local Dog pound to pick out the perfect pet. You know how we always see pets resembling their owners? This is that scene.

It was love at first sight and Murray captures the scene in all of its wonderful and absurd delight.

“All I know how to do is take a hundred cows and teach ‘em some manners.”

I love that the dog never says what breed he is. He’s probably a border collie but he could be a long-tailed Australian shepherd or an English shepherd – or a purpose bred mutt. He does, however, make a point of saying that he’s sure he’s not a show dog.

The Fierlingers’ long-awaited (at least by me) animated feature My Dog Tulip will be released by New Yorker Films this week. The film is based on J. R. Ackerley’s 1956 book about his sixteen year love affair with a German shepherd named Tulip. Parent please note, this animated feature was created for adults not children.

A profound and subtle mediation on the strangeness that lies at the heart of all relationships, My Dog Tulip was written, directed and animated by award-winning filmmakers Paul and Sandra Fierlinger and is the first animated feature ever to be entirely hand drawn and painted utilizing paperless computer technology.

It features the voices of Christopher Plummer as Ackerley, Lynn Redgrave (who died earlier this year) as his annoying sister and Isabella Rossellini as Tulip’s veterinarian.

In 1947, J.R. Ackerley rescued an 18-month-old German shepherd, and from the start her every look and move were to undo him. “Tulip never let me down. She is nothing if not consistent. She knows where to draw the line, and it is always in the same place, a circle around us both. Indeed, she is a good girl, but–and this is the point–she would not care for it to be generally known.” As he anatomizes her from head to toe with the awe-struck precision of a medieval courtier, Ackerley instantly turns us into Tulipomanes. Alas, many of the mere mortals she encounters feel differently, for there are indeed two Tulips. One is highly strung but heroic, flirtatious but true. The other is a four-legged rejoinder to authority: a biter, a barker, and a dab hand at defecating her way around London. Not that any of these are her fault. “You’re the trouble,” Tulip’s one good vet tells Ackerley as she banishes him from the surgery. “She’s in love with you, that’s obvious. And so life’s full of worries for her.”

I’m not generally a fan of movies glorifying bad dogs (this is why the book is still on my ‘to be read’ pile) – but I’m certain that the Fierlingers’ lyrical animation, their brilliant observations on men, women, dogs and the weird and wonderful ways our lives intersect will make this film one you don’t want to miss.

An unsentimental elegy to the American West, “Sweetgrass” follows the last modern-day cowboys to lead their flocks of sheep up into Montana’s breathtaking and often dangerous Absaroka-Beartooth mountains for summer pasture. This astonishingly beautiful yet unsparing film reveals a world in which nature and culture, animals and humans, vulnerability and violence are all intimately meshed.